marysoonlee.bsky.social
Author, cat owner, and book addict. Website: https://marysoonlee.com/
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#TSOTD_note Bench
- the title was suggested by my daughter
- I am very fond of the people coming up to Xau as he sits on the bench
- and also fond of Donal's unexpected success in getting Xau to drink alcohol "for educational purposes"
- Donal was a fun character to write
✏️📖🐉
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Sending the very best thoughts to Trooper.
I'm doing well today, less anxious than I have been for a while :-)
🐈⬛
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#TSOTD_note Eirdre
- I tried to signal that the guard "relegated to the menial work" is Xau, because I didn't want the later revelation to Eirdre to be a gotcha moment for the reader
- instead readers can speculate on what Xau's 3 other guards are doing during this scene. [I think sleeping.]
✏️📖🐉🐴
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#TSOTD_note Wake
- this is one of the times when there's a long poem from the point-of-view of a character who appears nowhere else in the story
- despite his dislike for Xau, I am fond of Gaer: loyal through his drunken anger
- like Xau's guards, Rourk "put his king before himself."
✏️📖🐉
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#TSOTD_note Distraction
- this and the following five poems were written over a year after the previous few, before we return to a poem (Swords) written relatively early on
- I think writing out-of-sequence is easier with poems
- Li is my favorite of Xau's guards, but I also love Leong.
✏️📖
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Possibly I have already gobbled up book two in Jodi Taylor's SF series about time-traveling historians, just one day after finishing book one. Who can say? [But it was the weekend.]
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
📖
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#TSOTD_note Postponed
- Hmmm. What to say? I don't like Fian.
- I don't like Fian, but I do agree with her anti-monarchy stance from an earlier poem (in this one she's happy with her son becoming king provided she controls him)
- monarchs not chosen by dragons are notoriously undependable
✏️📖🐉
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#TSOTD_note The Ride Back
- accompanied by one of Gary McCluskey's superb illustrations
- early drafts of this poem were considerably longer, but the heart of it is unchanged: Xau considers saying how much Li means to him, but doesn't do so
- quite a bit later, there's a call back to this moment
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That is as good as a clog can be :-)
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#TSOTD_note Viewpoint
- Li again, realizing during the course of this poem, how much he values his own life
- which he gladly risks for Xau, but here is risking for Donal
- this poem and the follow-up in the next poem mark an important point (though unvoiced) in Xau and Li's relationship
✏️📖🐉
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I am so sorry about the emotion dump truck. All praise to Firefly for paying attention and sharing her chew toy.
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#TSOTD_note Before Kings
"She spoke in the old language...." - I probably pulled this from memories of my mother speaking Irish Gaelic. Though they spoke English at home, it was the primary language at the school where she was taught (she was taught English in Irish!)
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#TSOTD_note Li
- this poem was written fairly early on
- it went through a series of revisions, but no change in its essentials
- Li is one of my favorite characters, maybe, in my innermost heart, my very favorite (shhh - don't tell the others)
- I love the friendship between Li and Xau
✏️📖🐉
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#TSOTD_note Welcome
- the previous two poems heralded Xau's coming trip to Innis
- and now the Innis adventure actually begins
- earlier we saw Fian manipulating Donal, and then harvesting the demon's power for herself
- she is not, shall we say, one of the heroines of the piece
✏️📖🐉🐺
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For what it's worth (not much!) I think you conducted your adventure very responsibly, staging your journey with overnight breaks, not pushing for home when you felt tired.
Would that there were a more complete and frequent and lovely train service hereabouts, but you did well in my book :-)
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#TSOTD_note Ever After
- returning to the Connol/Mei thread for one poem
- their thread has similiarities to F/fairytale romance tropes, but takes its own path
- I imagined a lot more of Mei's life than appears in the book
- I like that Connol is the soft one in the pairing
✏️📖🐉
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I'm very glad you had a good cat reunion and that they all slept with you last night :-) 🐈🐈⬛
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#TSOTD_note Foreboding
- the book skips past some events and zooms in on others
- this poem's reference to Dao's off-wrist not being at full strength indicates an episode the reader didn't see
- one more of many examples is that there's no mention of Ying until she's old enough to guess riddles
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finding the length of the rooms,
the width of the dividing wall,
the height of a train tunnel.
He might have been a builder,
an architect, an artist:
so serious, so engrossed
as he checked the dimensions
to make sure there was room
for him.
- written after his first morning of PreKindergarten
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#TSOTD_note First Day
Breaking from my usual notes, here's a poem about my own son's first day:
Sizing Up
- first published in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review
I sat in my son's classroom
for the first hour of his first day
while he measured away
with a red and yellow tape measure,
[continued]
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I'm behind and am only now reading Saint Death's Daughter. Better late than never! I'm liking it very much, though sometimes I'm anxious for the characters. (As one should be, I think.)
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It is SO good :-)
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I am trying not to be tempted into ordering any of these, but it is hard work!
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... and "Point of Hearts," (Melissa Scott, new and very welcome addition to her Astreiant fantasy series).
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... but in itself about as close to cosy fantasy as you can get with an assassin as the main character.
Also much enjoyed:
"A Sorceress Comes to Call" (T. Kingfisher, who can do no wrong)
"Carousel Tides" + "Carousel Sun" (Sharon Lee, first 2 of her Archer's Beach contemporary fantasy trilogy)
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#TSOTD_note Bespeaking: Riddles
- first published in Star*Line
- a riddle from a deleted sequel poem
The dragon yawned smokily.
"Lovelier than rubies,
stronger than warriors,
wiser than sages,
devourer of princes,
what am I?"
"Conceited," bespoke the Hidden Queen.
"The answer is yourself."
✏️📖🐉
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I love the picture of you making the glass ornament :-)
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Oops. wrong link for bookshop.org. I abase myself. This one should hopefully work.....
bookshop.org/p/books/how-...
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N.B. The book is also available from other places, in case anyone is interested :-)
Bookshop.org -> shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?sU5pIN...
IngramSpark -> shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?sU5pIN...
Barnes and Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-nav...
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How to Colonize Ganymede
- first published in NewMyths.com
Let humans scratch the surface
of this moon larger than Mercury,
planting their flags, posturing.
Beneath his icy surface,
a buried breadth of oceans,
layer on liquid layer.
Save those for the whales.
Let them bring light.
Let them sing.
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Here's one of the shortest poems in the book:
How to Be a Star
- first published in Uppagus
Gravitationally collapse a nebula.
Fuse hydrogen into helium.
If desired, explode.
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... my collection of How-To astronomy poetry, "How to Navigate Our Universe." This is priced at $9, when sold in the USA, and the royalty rate will be decreasing from $2.52 to $1.62 in the USA.
I'm not going to change the price, but the change is ... disappointing.
marysoonlee.com/book/how-to-...
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#TSOTD_note Letters
- last of the poems with Nya
- I believe Li is annoyed with Nya
- these poems (and the other couple of poems in script-format) caused formatting glitches. In the end, they are laid out slightly differently than I'd originally planned in order to reduce the glitching.
✏️📖🐉✉️
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That reinforces my intention to go to the Corning Museum of Glass one of these days. I’m glad you liked it!
Sending good thoughts for knees….
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#TSOTD_note Sickbed
- one of very few poems where we learn anything about Xau's mother
- When Nya says "I maintain a large correspondence" and then gives Xau information she'd learned from Vihaz's wives, in my mind there's a network of women staying in touch with each other, Shazia, Nya, et al.
✏️
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That was lovely. Here's to fun: books that are fun to read and write, friendships, events, good hearts.
📖🙂
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#TSOTD_note Outspoken
- the first of three poems in a row that are in script/play/dramatic format.
- Nya was my father's mother's middle name.
- Xau and his guards are upset enough that they do not behave according to their usual custom when in company (guards largely silent and Xau polite)
✏️📖🐉
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NOTE: the illustration is by Gary McCluskey, and is one of 40 illustrations he did for "The Sign of the Dragon"